


No Rest for the Wicked

by oxiosa



Series: Brarg Week 2018 [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Latin Hetalia - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, F/F, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 17:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16727748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxiosa/pseuds/oxiosa
Summary: Even if Luciana doesn’t have to, she starts to share her story in return. It seems only fair, after how much Martina has trusted on her. And maybe - just maybe - she wants Martina to know her back.





	No Rest for the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

> Disclamer; the characters used in this work belong to the community Latin Hetalia and their respective creators. More info about them in the following link > www.latin-hetalia.livejournal.com
> 
> Fem!Argentina: Martina Hernández  
> Fem!Brazil: Luciana Da Silva.

Luciana watches a light frizzle of raindrops spitter quietly on tree leaves and the river water from the cozy safety of her porch, comfortably sitting around soft worn down pillows on her wicker armchair with a big warm cup of black coffee. She hums to herself, quietly chanting a protecting charm to the bracelet she so very carefully has been braiding for the last hour. Sofía naps by her side, sprawled on the old wooden table surrounded by colourful tangles of threads, a black hairy mass of a cat lazily flicking her tail every now and then.

Birds and animals cry out in the distance, across the river and within the safety of the rainforest’s density, but Luciana pays them no mind, used to their company after a lifetime of living by the riverside. Thunder rumbles from grey gathering clouds high in the sky with the promise of a storm she does not believe quite _yet_.

It’s her wind chimes, that jumps to dance and sing with a sudden breeze, that take Luciana’s attention off her work. Her eyebrows shoot up with surprise, and she exchanges glances with the one big green eye Sofía lazily opens at her.

“Expecting someone?” she asks, and Sofía closes her eye with a little huff.

Luciana is on her feet, shaking her skirt and letting her hair down from her messy bun, when she hears the bell on her front door ring from the other side of the house.

“Coming!” she calls.

She finds a young woman about her age on her door, wearing a bright red raincoat. She has long blond hair trailing down the hood protecting her from the light rain, and dark bags cling under her green eyes, almost invisible concealed with makeup.

“My name is Martina,” she introduces her. “I’m looking for Luciana Da Silva.”

“That’d be me,” Luciana eyes her up and down a little warily.

“I was hoping to ask for a ah… favour. A job,” Martina hesitates over the word. “I was told you could help.”

Luciana nods, and takes a step back.

“Come in,” she lets the front door wide open for her.

Luciana’s house is small, and mostly stuffed. Books, jars and plants of all sizes and colours fill every nook and cranny. There are things newly brewed or bought, but there are also things older than Luciana herself, each of them full of power and magic. While she knows some people might call it crowded, she likes to think as cozy.

She guides Martina to the couch by the fireplace, where an iron kettle with warm water hags from the sleeping embers that crack quietly. Luciana carefully stirs the embers around with an iron poker, whispers to them and watches them wake and burn with hunger. She smiles at them with the fondness of a mother, and throws them some wood to bring the sleeping fire to life.

“I’ll be right back in a moment,” Luciana says.

Her kitchen is barely a foot steps away, and there’s really no wall or door separating it from the living room. It’s an even smaller room, and somehow even  _stuffier_. Endless shelves displays jars and bottles, some even hang from the low ceiling barely high enough not to hit Luciana in the head as she moves around.

Luciana herself usually prefers coffee, but she has some tea to offer to her visits. She lets her hand wander around her small collection before she settle for some chamomile. She takes back a tray with two empty cups and honey. Before returning to her guest, she makes a stop to the back porch. When she pokes her head through the door, Sofía trills at her questiongly, but otherwise doesn’t move.

“Come on, we’ve got company,” Luciana tilts her heads inviting her inside.

Sofía stands and stretches with a long yawn before dutifully jumping to the floor and passing by Luciana as she unhurriedly makes her way to the living room where Martina - who has taken of the raincoat - sits still as a statue, hands balled into fists over her knees. Sofía waltzes and meows at her, only warning before jumping to her lap and claiming it as her new sleeping spot much to her guests surprised “oh!”.

“I hope you’re a cat person,” Luciana says with a smile as she places the tray on the coffee table.

“I’m not sure I am,” Martina answers, and tentatively sinks her fingers in the long dark hair of Sofía’s back.

Luciana busies herself making the tea, pouring the hot water on the chamomile and adding a couple of spoonfuls of honey, and she watches from the corner of her eye with a smug smirk the way her guest’s tense shoulders relax when the petting grants her loud purring from Sofía.

“Here,” she gently places a steaming cup of warm tea on Martina’s waiting hands.

They drink silently for a moment, as Luciana lets the warm drink and Sofía very own kind of magic ease on her new clients nerves. Luciana by now is used to having regulars, but is familiar with the unease new clients usually feel at being hosted by a witch. Only when she notices all the tension has left Martina’s pose, she speaks;

“So, how can I help you?”

Martina carefully puts down her cup, taking a moment to gather her words.

“I haven’t been able to sleep very well for some time,” Martina answers carefully.

“How bad for how long?”

“Pretty bad,” Martina replies, rather curtly. “Year and a half.” She frowns to herself, and hesitates for a moment. Sofía’s soft trill calling again for more petting is what seems to anchor her back and regain her momentum. “I’ve already tried everything, and nothing seems to work on me.”

Luciana nods. She believes her; she wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t.

“Give me your hand,” she asks.

Martina extends her hand with her palm up, and Luciana examines for a moment. She follows the lines that run through it carefully, before reaching out and opening a small wooden box by the coffee table. She takes a moment to look around all the colourful stones inside it, before she takes one - round and perfectly white - and places it on Martina’s open palm.

They both let out a quiet startle gasp when the gemstone splinters with a loud crack the moment Martina touches it. They both stare in stunned silence before Martina dares to speaks.

“That’s... not be good, is it?”

“It’s not,” Luciana mumbles back.

She has _never_ seen anything like that happen, nor has ever heard of it. She stands, and leaves Martina in the living room without a word. She heads to her room first, and rummages through her dresser’s drawers, moving clothes, pages and tin boxes around until she finds what she was looking for; a small dark glass vial with a cork on top. She takes it to her ear and shakes it, and nods to herself satisfies when she hears the tiniest amount of liquid inside. She pockets the small vial, and takes her grandmother’s old mirror down from the wall.

Luciana waltz back into the living room, very much under Martina’s attentive gaze, and places the mirror on the floor in front of her. She looks around, and frowns to herself before she spots on her library some loose pieces of chalk she quickly takes. She turns the mirror around, and carefully draws a binding seal on its back.

Then, she turns to Martina, who is staring at her unmoving with distrustful green eyes.

“I’ll need you to take a little nap,” Luciana announces.

“A _nap_?” Martina blinks in confusion, and then frowns. “Here…? Now…?”

“Yes,” Luciana nods, and sits by Martina’s side.

“Have you not listened to what I said? I _can't_ sleep.”

Luciana sits by Martina’s side, and pulls from her pocket the small vial.

“What’s that?” Martina asks.

“A little something you’ll be borrowing from my personal collection,” Luciana says as she takes the cork of the vial.

Martina wrinkles her nose with distaste at the strong unpleasant smell.

“I know,” Luciana allows a little sympathetic smile to curve her lips. “But I promise it’s worth it.”

It doesn’t taste any better than it smells either, but Luciana decides not to comment on it.

Luciana pours one small drops from the vial into Martina’s tea, and hands the cup over. Martina frowns down at it for a moment, before looking back up at Luciana. Her frown deepens for a moment, and when Luciana thinks she’ll refuse to drink, Martina takes the cup to her lips and downs the tea in one long stubborn gulp. Luciana shoots her a reassuring smile, and carefully takes the empty cup from her hands to place it over the coffee table.

“You might want to make yourself comfortable now,” she says.

Martina simply frowns back at her, but the effect is ruined with the yawn that rises from her chest. She blinks, surprised and suddenly heavy-lidded, and melts into the couch’s cushions until she is half laying on it. Sofía complains and jumps out of Martina’s lap with a loud undignified meow that Martina ignores as she slowly falls into unconsciousness.

Luciana stands, carefully walking on her tiptoes not to make any sound, and crouches in front of the mirror. She makes sure to turn it until it face straight into Martina’s form, and then whispers to it, quiet and soft, and draws with the tip of her finger just another seal over her fogged breath on the smooth reflective surface.

She stands back a couple of steps, pleased with her work, and waits.

It doesn’t take long. Martina falls asleep in less than a minute; the moment she finally falls into unconsciousness with a quiet sigh, her reflection’s eyes snap wide open.

“Well, hello there,” Luciana mutters to herself, and Sofía lets out a loud hiss as she hides under the coffee table baring her fangs at the mirror.

The thing in the mirror looks around in mild confusion as it sits up, until its eyes meet Luciana on the other side of the glass. Luciana can feel a heavy weight settling on her chest the moment those dark empty pupils fix on her, and the thing in the mirror grins.

“I wouldn’t look so happy if I were you,” Luciana defies. She crosses her arms, and glares. “You are trapped, and soon will be dead. You won’t be bothering anyone anymore, nightmare.”

The thing in the mirror gives Luciana a smile that even in Martina’s pretty face looks ugly and its shoulders start shaking with laughter. It’s a terrible awful sound, hollow and broken, that vibrates like shattered glass.

“ _We shall see, witch_ ,” the thing in the mirror says, it’s voice cruel and distorted, and cackles.

Luciana covers the mirror, and the room falls into sudden silence. The thing in the mirror is gone, and so is the oppression feeling in Luciana’s chest. Martina remains fast asleep on the couch, breathing softly and heavily, and now that she is not glaring back at Luciana with skepticism, it’s easy to see how tired she really looks. She must have been aching for some rest, Luciana thinks to herself, and decides to let her sleep until the effects of the potion are gone.

“Well, no rest for the wicked, right?” Luciana shoots a glance towards Sofía, who still hasn’t left her hiding spot under the coffee table.

She takes the mirror outside, careful not to drop, and makes sure it’s facing straight into the sun. Only then she takes the cloth covering it, and steps back as the light hits the glass with blinding force.

“Bye, bye, nightmare,” she smiles pleased, and heads back inside.

Two hours later, Martina wakes up, disoriented, and Luciana offers her some coffee and freshly baked cornstarch biscuits. The strong blend is enough to wake her up, and the sight of food seems to open up her appetite. Luciana takes that as a good sign.

Once she’s feed and fully awaken, Luciana explains what she did without much detail. Martina doesn’t need to know or understands the dynamics of what happened while she was asleep, but she does let her know the problem has been taken care of and that she should be able to sleep without trouble. Martina looks a little hesitant, but Luciana smiles encouraging at her.

“If you feel you’re having trouble again, you can always come back to me,” Luciana says, certain it won’t be necessary.

She walks Martina to the front door, and waves her goodbye when she leaves.

“Another job well done,” Luciana smiles triumphant towards Sofía, who yawns back at her comfortably laying on the warm spot Martina has left on the couch.

 

Luciana is surprised when Martina comes back the very next day with dark bags she doesn’t bother to try to conceal under her eyes.

“I don’t know what you did,” Martina informs rather miserably. “But it did not work.”

“That can’t be,” Luciana whispers in disbelief.

She lets Martina in and offers her some coffee, before discretely sneaking into her bedroom. She stomps to her grandmother’s mirror, innocently hanging on the wall, and stands right in front of it. She stares at her reflections for a moment, until it suddenly blink and smiles wickedly back at her.

“You are not supposed to have survived,” she hisses. “You are not supposed to still have power over her.”

“ _I am rooted deep inside her bones,_ ” the thing in the mirror answers. “ _You cannot strip me from her._ ”

Luciana closes her hands into fist at her sides, and clenches her jaw.

“What are you?” she demands.

The thing in the mirror laughs, bares their teeth to Luciana.

“ _I am fear,_ ” it says. “ _And she is mine._ ”

“Oh, yeah?” Luciana takes a blanket, and throws it over the mirror until the cackling is gone. “We shall see about that.”

Luciana will not back down.

She goes back to Martina, and explains without going into much detail that she’ll need more time and will work on setting Martina free from whatever seems to be hautin her.

“This will help, until we fix whatever is keeping you up,” Luciana shakes the small vial with sleeping potion in the air before extending it towards Martina. “Just three drops before you go to bed, no more unless you want to sleep for a whole week straight, ok?”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Martina mutters as she reaches out.

Luciana takes the vial back,closing her hand in a tight fist around it. She glares darkly back at Martina, stern and unrelenting.

“ _Fine_ , I get it, only three drops,” Martina huffs and rolls her impatiently.

Luciana squints at her, but ends up carefully placing the vial in Martina’s waiting hands.

“It should be enough for a week tops,” Luciana says. “Hopefully, we’ll fix the problem by then.”

Using the potion for too long might be dangerous; the more Martina uses it, the less likely she’ll sleep without its help. An overdose might make her not wake up again. But Luciana has little choice; it’s all she can give Martina for now.

It’s a long process, longer than Martina or even Luciana herself had anticipated. Luciana goes through her mother’s - her _mother’s mother_ , and her mother _before_ her - library and spends night after night reading books as old as her home. It takes many days of fruitless research, of chanting spells and brewing potions for nothing, enough to over do Martina’s stay on her hotel room.

“You can move in with me and we can share my bed,” Luciana says, because she refuses to give up and let Martina walk away from her with a half baked job. “It’s big enough for the both of us.”

And so Martina does. She leaves her hotel and moves to Luciana’s place, with nothing but the clothes she’s wearing and a suitcase in tow.

The arrangement is new, even if she barely does touch Luciana’s bed. Luciana has never lived with anyone beside her mother or grandmother - and it’s been _years_ since. She expected some resilience, but is surprised how easy it seems to work. Martina makes good company most of the time, and when she does not she usually retreats to solicitude on her own accord. She starts helping Luciana around with what she can, learning a thing or two about witchcraft herself. After some time Luciana starts wondering _how_ did she manage to live in her lonesome for so long.

Martina remains restless however, and now that she gets to see it first hand, Luciana understand a little better the torture she is going through. Luciana’s potions helps, eases her down for a couple of hours, but following Luciana’s instructions, Martina is only to take it when fatigue catches up on her and weightes her down. During the sleepless nights, she wanders through the house like a ghost, looking for something to make her forget how very tired she is. Some mornings Luciana finds her sleeping curled on some couch, but most she is wide awake already waiting for Luciana to join her to the living. She doesn’t get many hours of sleep, at least not in row. She dozes off here and there for an hour - two if she’s lucky - only to wake up with wide scared eyes and heavy panting, startle out of her sleep.

 _I am fear_ , a quiet voice hisses in Luciana’s ear.

Whatever prevents Martina from sleeping, it seems to take root in her dreams. It’s not so much that she fails to conceal sleep; something seems to kick her out of it instead, chase her into consciousness when she drifts a little too far from it.

So next time Martina wakes up after dozing off while holding a book, gasping for air like it had been taken from her and looking around for a non-existing threat with frantic eyes, Luciana asks.

“Do you remember what you were dreaming about?”

Martina shakes her head softly, perhaps still a little too shaken to find her words.

“Ever?” Luciana presses as gently as she can. “You don’t dream?”

“No,” Martina answers. “Not since my mother died.”

Not since the sleepless nights began, Luciana learns.

Martina had never met her father, a man who had left her mother the moment he found out Martina was on the way. Her grandparents died when she was young, and her mother had been an only child, so they had been just the two of us as she grew up back in Argentina. She had loved Martina, _adored her_ , and Martina had loved her in return as much.

“It was always just the two of us,” Martina shrugs trying to hide the sadness in her eyes.

When she died, almost two years ago now, Martina was left alone in the world and going to bed turned into a torment.

Luciana asks about her, about Martina’s life, and Martina answers. Even if Luciana doesn’t have to, she starts to share her story in return. It seems only fair, after how much Martina has trusted on her. And maybe - _just maybe_ \- she wants Martina to know her back, maybe she wants to see the way Martina seems always so interested in listening to her, the way she smiles and laughs with her tales and jokes. Maybe Luciana likes her. Maybe she has come to like Martina more than she has ever liked anyone. Maybe she spends her days taking in every word she says and her nights remembering the little moments she gets to see her sleeping face. Maybe watching her drift into sleep out of utter fatigue, like a candle fading in the wind, and witnessing her suddenly wake up scared out of her mind even for the brief seconds it takes her to shake her dream off cut deep into Luciana’s heart.

Maybe she has fallen in love.

 _She is mine,_ whispers a voice in her dreams, and Luciana wakes up with a choked sob and a heavy weight on her chest.

“She won’t be for long,” she promises to the mirror on the wall every morning.

She has tried asking once, out of sheer hopelessness. Going straight on into the root of the problem. During one quiet night, while both of them are sitting by the porch watching fireflies dance over the river surface, Luciana, hopeless beyond any point since she took Martina in, asks.

“What are you afraid of?”

Martina seems a little taken back by the question, and doesn’t take it as seriously as Luciana would like.

“Heights,” she says, and laughs quietly. “And bugs, I guess. Not scared, perhaps, but I definitely don’t like them.”

Luciana stares at her, and when Martina turns towards her and meets her stern eyes, she loses her smile. Luciana waits for her answer - for the _right_ answer - but Martina frowns and turns, hides behind a curtain of thick blonde hair.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” she declares buntly.

She gives Luciana her back and goes back inside. Luciana closes her eyes; she didn’t miss the way Martina’s breath shuddered and her hands shook.

_I am fear, and she is mine._

Soon, Luciana also starts losing sleep. She spends day and night reading every book she owns, over and over again, looking for something she can use. She leaves her home, leaves town, asks for help from women and men that work magic as well as she does. No one seems to be able to give her useful advice, and they seem to be as perplex with Martina as she is.

“Some problems are even beyond us,” one old woman with blind eyes and scarred hands tells her.

Luciana _refuses_ to give up.

It does not matter, for in truth it was never her call.

After six months, Martina announces she is going back to Argentina.

“We’re not done here,” Luciana protests stubbornly.

“We are.”

They sit side by side in Luciana’s bed, surrounded by old borrowed books that make little sense to Luciana with Sofía sleeping between them. Martina lays by her side, heavy-lidded and slowly drifting into a sleep that both know won’t last long but is well needed. A storm rages outside Luciana’s tiny home, the rain falls unforgiving, deafening, and thunder cracks up the sky, but Luciana can almost feel it down her skin; something akin to anger flares inside her chest as she watches Martina accept defeat.

It has been too long. She is too tired to keep fighting.

“You’ll be fine,” Martina says. She blinks, but does not close her eyes just yet. “It’ll be just like before.”

That is what Luciana fears. She had never minded being alone, ever. But now, if Martina leaves, Luciana thinks she’ll die. Her memories of Martina will drive her insane, and her newfound loneliness and longing will surely kill her.

“You can’t leave,” Luciana shakes her head, and the anger in her chest crawls to her throat, threatens to choke her.

“You’ve done more than anyone has ever done for me,” Martina whispers. “I can’t stay forever.”

“Yes, you can.”

Martina‘s eyes fall closed. Luciana _needs_ her to look at her.

“You could, if you wanted to,” she insists. She hesitates, but she has gone too far already to back down. “I want you to.”

Martina doesn’t move, or says anything. There’s only the sound of rain, and even if the silence starts to bury like a knife inside Luciana’s heart, by now she cannot stop what she wants Martina to hear from her.

“I love you,” she says. “Stay with me. _I love you_.”

Martina lets out a shivering weak sigh, and opens her eyes again. She reaches out, and takes Luciana’s hand, and whisper a weak quiet ‘ _I love you_ ’. Luciana smiles down at her, watches a tear roll down Martina’s cheek and quickly wipes her own before they spill. She cradles Martina’s face, kisses her forehead and her eyelids with nothing less than adoration.

“You’ll never have to be alone again,” she promises, and means every world with her aching heart.

Martina lets out a shuddering sigh, and a loud cracking noise thunders through the house. Sofía stands and curls her back with a loud hiss, and Luciana can feel it snap inside her chest - and by the way Martina suddenly clings to her like her life depended on it, so does she.

Luciana jumps to her feet. She remains frozen where she stands for a moment, before she dares walk to the mirror and pull the blanket covering it away to reveal the broken glass. Luciana stares, holds her cracked reflection’s gaze almost defiant only to see herself back staring back.

There’s nothing in there.

She’s free. They’re free.

“She’s mine,” she whispers, and this time the reflection in the mirror does not challenge her back.

It’s gone, and _they’re free_.

She turns to Martina, and finds she has fallen completely asleep. The sight warms and tights Luciana’s heart at the same time, like it has always done, and she carefully slips back into bed. Sofía stretches and rubs against Luciana, purrs against the hand Luciana strokes through her back, before laying back again by the feet of the bed. Luciana smiles at her, and kicks her books out of the way so she can lay by Martina’s side face to face. She takes her hand in hers again, and watches her. Old fear still clutched her heart, so watches Martina praying she won’t come to wake up scared and without air. Luciana keep vigil for an hour, and two, and three, she cries on the fourth, and joins Martina in her deep sleep by the fifth.

 _She’s mine,_ she think as she drifts into sleep clinging to her hand, _and I am hers._

**Author's Note:**

> ☑ Brarg Week - Day 1; Magic


End file.
